Samsung Electronics Co said on Tuesday its Galaxy Gear has become the world's most popular smartwatch with sales reaching 800,000 since its debut two months ago, defying some market concerns the accessory would fail due to a lack of compelling features.

The South Korean firm said Gear sales have been better than its own expectations and it would expand sales promotions for the wearable device for the crucial year-end holiday sales.

Impressive for a poorly reviewed device. I guess this is what marketing and bundling can do - then again, without bundling, flagship smartphone sales would crumble like three week old bread too.

The thing is, all sales figures in this industry are *shipped*, because they have no idea how many are actually *sold* at any given time. Even Apple, which always claims it reports *sold*, actually reports *shipped* - they just redefine "shipped" into "sold" in their SEC filings. Considering the shelves bursting with iPhones and iPads, Galaxy phones and tablets, and so on, at electronics retailers here in The Netherlands, these "shipped" figures are always problematic.

However, we can assume that retailers - especially in these trying economic times - aren't keen on keeping huge inventory, so I think that right now, the difference between shipped and sold are smaller than they have ever been.